Sir Isaac Newton was an English
physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, inventor and natural
philosopher. He is often regarded as the most influential scientist
in history and is most famous for discovering the Laws of Gravity.
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;">He is quoted as
having said “<b>If I have seen further it is only by standing on
the shoulders of giants.</b>”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;">I have heard many
enterprising developers say that they have interest working with
Safaricom and other industry leaders to expand their innovations to a
wider market. One huge setback facing such developers is when the
giant attempts to step on the poor developers by slaming them with
“big-boy” revenue-share agreements.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Why
is revenue share is so inhibitive in our market? Currently if you
partner with Safaricom, they will take about 60% of revenues (i stand
to be corrected as i have not signed up with them yet).</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Elsewhere
in the world, like in Japan, 70% goes to the developer. </span>Nokia
is also helping local developers market their apps globally, Nokia
takes 30% and pays out 70% to the developer.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I would be happy to hear more from
Safaricom on this.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">How can Safaricom encourage us to test
our innovations in this market as you have done so well with M-PESA
before exporting it to other countries?</p>
<br>Muthoni<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 1:11 PM, Matunda Nyanchama <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mnyanchama@aganoconsulting.com">mnyanchama@aganoconsulting.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div style="font-family: bookman old style,new york,times,serif; font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><br>Congratulations are in order for these young girls in the <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Girls%20who%20created%20social%20network%20for%20farmers%20/-/1056/1085706/-/6c0qcjz/-/index.html" target="_blank">above story</a>; kudos.<br>
<br>My reading is that there are many such stories and potential successes that could happen. This was reinforced when I saw presentations at the most recent AITEC event in Nairobi. We just need the right environment and our tech sector will take off to even higher heights than the present trend suggests.<br>
<br>Couple of things that could help:<br><ul><li>Protection of Intellectual Property: I marveled at the ease with which those at the conference shared their creations and even creations that were on the drawing board! Question: how do they know who the
prying eyes are in the public event? And prying eyes with deeper pockets and better knowledge of the business of IT?</li><li>Risk Capital: Silicon Valley wouldn't have been without risk capital? RIM (that produces the blackberry), one of the most successful Canadian tech creations, would not have happened without risk capital. For the longest time, the latter depended on government grants, which allowed them to go thru' teething stages! In Kenya, we may not have the kind money Canada has thrown into R&D in form of grants. However, we can have a variation of this. One possibility I have shared with friends relates to incentives, i.e. tax credits, R&D Levy Fund from which companies can get back some of the money invested in R&D, and even some form of "insurance" where risk capital would be compensated at a given % should a venture not materialize!</li>
<li>Active scouting of ideas for development in science fairs, tech conferences, etc and
investing in those that offer promise.<br></li></ul><div> <span style="font-style: italic;">Ukiona vyalea vimeundua</span> or words to that effect from the wisdom of the old.Development cannot be left to chance. It reminds of a science project we did in high school: powering a radio using stored energy in a wind up spring! We got good marks; and off we went later to university, forgot about it and lo! years later, someone was selling wind up radios in rural Africa! <br>
<br>Shukrani.<br></div><br>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><font color="#888888"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Matunda Nyanchama, <a href="mailto:mnyanchama@aganoconsulting.com" target="_blank">mnyanchama@aganoconsulting.com</a></span><br style="font-weight: bold;">
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Agano Consulting Inc.; </span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.aganoconsulting.com" target="_blank">www.aganoconsulting.com</a><br>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><span lang="EN-CA"></span><i><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><br>
“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”</span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Book Antiqua";"> - George Bernard Shaw</span> <br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Muthoni<br><br>My Blog: <a href="http://rugongo.blogspot.com/">http://rugongo.blogspot.com/</a><br>--------------------------------------------<br>Mahatma Gandhi once said:-<br>
<br>First they ignore you,<br>Then they laugh at you,<br>Then they fight you,<br>AND THEN YOU WIN!!!<br>